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e.Digital Promises Another iPod Competitor
joefefifo writes: "e.Digital has a press release describing their Odyssey 1000, supposedly due out in the fall. Some stats: Looks like an iPod, uses USB 2.0., has a 20GB capacity, built-in mic for voice recording and navigation, FM Tuner with 12 presets, Mac & PC compatible, iTunes compatible, runs e.Digital's MicroOS 2.0. Except for the choice of OS, looks pretty sweet. Any chance someone will get it to run Linux instead?" Like Toshiba's little player, it uses USB 2 rather than Firewire.
PC Compatible? Finally... where can I sign up?
(SAN DIEGO, CA - July 22, 2002) - It's sleek, it's powerful, it has the capacity to download 4,800 songs, or 400 CDs, at lightning-quick speed -- and it's PC and Mac compatible. e.Digital Corporation (OTC: EDIG) today announced its new Odyssey 1000TM digital jukebox and data storage device, its premier digital audio player. Powered by e.Digital's MicroOS 2.0, the Odyssey 1000 combines the best of e.Digital's digital audio technology into one stellar, feature-packed unit.
Jim Collier, President and COO of e.Digital said, "The Odyssey 1000 sets the standard by which all other portable entertainment products will now be judged. It is the result of our first joint project with our strategic development partner Digitalway. It combines an elegant, world class industrial design from Digitalway's award-winning engineering team with e.Digital's state-of-the-art, patented audio technology. There is nothing else available that matches its elegant looks, full range of features, and cutting-edge Drag 'n RipTM technology."
The Odyssey 1000, which will be available to consumers this fall, boasts superb sound quality and outstanding battery life, with a minimum of 13 hours of playback time. The feature-rich Odyssey 1000 has a 20 Gigabyte hard drive for optimum MP3 and Windows MediaTM WMA playback and doubles as a data storage unit for movies, spreadsheets, e- books, and more. Its stainless steel, sleek industrial design only enhances the aesthetic appeal of this digital audio powerhouse, which is small enough to fit in a pocket or purse.
The Odyssey 1000's high-speed USB 2.0 connection and remarkable ease of use make downloading and transferring music a breeze. With the Odyssey 1000's USB 2.0 connection, users can transfer an entire CD to their player in about 5 seconds. And e.Digital's Drag 'n Rip technology enables users to transfer music in one easy step simply by dragging tracks directly from a CD directory onto their player's hard drive. Drag 'n Rip optionally enables users to create a mirror library of music on their computer. The Odyssey 1000 also is compatible with Mac iTunes TM.
Another outstanding feature is the Odyssey 1000's voice navigation capabilities. The Odyssey 1000 uses e.Digital's VoiceNavTM user interface based on Lucent's speech recognition technology so users can navigate through their libraries of music simply by the power of their own voice. It also has an easy-to-use scroll wheel for effortless manual navigation. In addition, the Odyssey 1000 is a voice recorder that comes with a built-in microphone for hours of voice recording on its massive hard drive.
Collier added that, "This is a product that will have broad appeal to both Mac and PC users. It provides them with a full suite of features and advanced technology not currently available from any other product on the market. It also will be subscription enabled and fully compatible with our subscription content partners, soon to be announced. Its intuitive user interface and ease of navigation will appeal to all age groups. Anyone who likes music and books will love the Odyssey 1000."
Furthermore, the Odyssey 1000 comes with music preloaded by e.Digital's Broadband Entertainment Business Unit so users can immediately start enjoying music on their player. The Odyssey 1000 also has an FM tuner with 12 available station presets and 16 MB DRAM buffering for robust anti-skip protection and increased battery life.
The standard Odyssey 1000 package will include e.Digital Music ExplorerTM 2.0 software for PC (featuring Drag 'n Rip technology), carrying case with belt clip, an installation CD and manual, stereo earphones, USB 2.0 cable with standard and mini connectors, a universal DC adaptor/battery charger, and RCA audio cable for home stereo connection.
The Odyssey 1000's Drag 'n Rip technology, voice navigation capabilities, and preloaded content make it absolutely unparalleled among its peers. The much-anticipated Odyssey 1000 will be available to consumers this fall.
The versatile Odyssey 1000 includes the following features:
Features:
About e.Digital
e.Digital Corporation offers an engineering partnership for the world's leading electronics companies to link portable digital devices to PCs and the Internet. e.Digital develops and markets to consumer electronics manufacturers complete end-to-end solutions for delivery and management of open and secure digital media with a focus on music, voice and video players/recorders, and automotive infotainment and telematics systems. Other applications for e.Digital's technology include portable digital music players and voice recorders; desktop, laptop, and handheld computers; PC peripherals; cellular phone peripherals; e-books; video games; digital cameras; and digital video recorders. Engineering services range from the licensing of e.Digital's patented MicroOSTM file management system to custom software and hardware development, industrial design, and manufacturing services. For more information on the company, please visit www.edig.com.To shop in the e.Digital online store, please visit www.edigital-store.com.
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Safe Harbor statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform of 1995: This document contains forward-looking statements relating to future performance, technology and product development that may affect future results and the future viability of the company. Actual results could be affected or differ materially from those projected in the forward- looking statements as a result of risks and uncertainties, including future products and results, technological shifts, potential technical difficulties that could delay new products, competition, general economic factors, and conditions in the markets in which the company operates, pricing pressures, the uncertainty of market acceptance of new products and services by OEM's and end-user customers, and other factors identified and discussed in the Company's most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These forward-looking statements are based on information and management's expectations as of the date hereof. Future results may differ materially from the Company's current expectations.
Note: e.Digital, Music Explorer, MicroOS 2.0, Drag 'n Rip, VoiceNav and Odyssey are registered trademarks of e.Digital Corporation. Windows Media is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. All other company, product, and service names are the property of their respective owners.
CONTACT:
Media Contact: Lisa Stevens, (858) 679-1504, PR@edig.com
Investor Relations Contact: Robert Putnam, (858) 679-1504, robert@edig.com
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I'll second that I have been playing with several USB 2.0 and Firewire to IDE briges and USB transfer rates are abismal. But lets remember firewire was braught to us by apple land of get it right the first time (remember these guys had SCSI drives in all there machines since the SE) USB is a hack at best and designed for the cheap as posible to implement croud. IDE was allways a cheap bus the only thing it has going for it is the vast ammounts of price bloat on the SCSI side. Firewire is just SCSI over a fast serial connection and in reality just a slow version of FCAL (ok not entirly there are some technical differences FCAL is significatly better but at a huge price point comparitivly it should be the new storage standard for servers) Granted with this all said neither is fast enough for a modestly fast hard drive to not see it as a bottleneck but trust me put you noisy fan loaded PC in your closet/basement run some quality KVM extensions USB firewire and sound (SPDIF of course :) up to your work area use a USB floppy and Firewire CDR/DVD and you have a nice nearly noiseless envirnment when you not activly accessing a disk with all the comferts of home (get a remote for the power switch X10 works well if your running windows for those hard reboots :)
No sir I dont like it.